Joint Announcement Concerning Portsmouth Abbey and Saint Louis Abbey

Portsmouth Abbey (Rhode Island) and Saint Louis Abbey (Missouri) are pleased to announce that, at the request of Portsmouth Abbey, the two monastic communities have entered into a partnership, whose aim is to foster the growth of monastic life at Portsmouth Abbey, which is currently faced with declining numbers and an increasingly aging community.

Over the course of the next three years, monks from Saint Louis Abbey will undertake visits to Portsmouth Abbey, in order to support and strengthen monastic life at Portsmouth, and to develop more fully relations between the two communities. After this initial three-year period, Saint Louis Abbey will undertake to send a group of monks to Portsmouth Abbey for a more extended period of time, with the intent to reinvigorate and strengthen monastic life at Portsmouth Abbey.

Both Portsmouth Abbey and Saint Louis Abbey believe that the ongoing witness of monastic life and our common apostolates of Benedictine education are of service to the Church in the United States, and can play an important role in the New Evangelization.

We ask the friends and supporters of both our communities to assist us in this venture with their prayers.